Franklin on FranklinPaul M. Zall University Press of Kentucky, 14.12.2021 - 328 Seiten Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography ends in 1758, some thirty years before he died. Those three decades included some of the statesman's greatest triumphs, yet instead of including them in his memoir, Franklin spent the years continually revising his original text. Paul Zall has created a new autobiographical account of Franklin's entire life. By returning to a newly recovered early draft of the Autobiography, he strips away later layers of moralizing to reveal the story as Franklin first wrote it: how a poor boy from Boston used words and hard work to become America's first world-class citizen. To cover Franklin's career as a diplomat and as the only signatory of all three key documents of the American Revolution, Zall interweaves autobiographical comments from Franklin's personal letters and private journals. Franklin emerges as different from the common perception of him as a crafty "Man of Reason." His raw words reveal the bitter infighting among both British and American politicians and his personal struggle with his son's choice of the opposite side in the fight for the future of two countries. Without the veneer of second thoughts, his lifelong struggle to control his temper carries greater poignancy, as do his later years spent nursing his wounded pride. Susceptible to both fallibility and frustration, the honest Franklin depicted in his own words nevertheless remains an uncommon common man, perhaps even more so than previously thought. |
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... continu'd however at the Grammar School only one Year, tho' in that time I had risen gradually from the Middle of the Class of that Year to be the Head of it, and farther was remov'd into the next Class above it, in order to go with ...
... continu'd thus employ'd by my Father's Business for two Years, that is till I was 12 Years old, and my Brother John, who was bred to that Business having left my Father, married and set up for himself at Rhodeisland, there was all ...
... continu'd this Method some Years, but gradually left it, retaining only the Habit of expressing my self in Terms of modest Diffidence, never using in any thing that may possibly be disputed, the Words, “Certainly, undoubtedly,” or any ...
... continu'd so till the Meeting broke up, when one was kind enough to rouse me. This was the first House I was in or slept in, in Philadelphia. Walking again down towards the River, & looking in the Faces of People, I met a young Quaker ...
... continu'd a sober as well as industrious Lad; was much respected for his Learning by several of the Clergy & other Gentlemen, and seem'd to promise making a good Figure in Life: but during my Absence he had acquir'd a habit of Sotting ...
Inhalt
Facing Uncertain Philadelphia Future 17261727 | |
Venturing into Business | |
May 1728September 1730 | |
1749 | |
17481753 | |
17431753 | |
1754 | |
1756 | |
17561757 | |
17571762 | |
17571765 | |
17291730 | |
17311732 | |
17311754 | |
17361739 | |
17391740 | |
1740s | |
17661770 | |
17701774 | |
17741775 | |
17751785 | |
Notes | |
Index | |